f5 m 



LIBRARY OF 




006 022 




PS 1119 
.B32 J6 
1889 
Copy 1 



OHNSTOWN pLOOD, 



T'was a fatal day the thirty-first day of May, 

In the 3^ear of eighty-nine, 
When the horror of horrors the saddest of all, 

Swept over the City of Johnstown. 
It came not to take the poor alone, 

In their scanty humble cot. 
But the rich as well, that mansions owned. 

Have suffered beneath the blot. 

It swept down the Conemaugh valley so green, 

A fierce hungry demon of death, 
A watery wall, a forty foot fiend. 

That buried its victims beneath. 
As the Valley of Death it will ever be known. 

And many a tear will be shed, 
For a finger will point to the graves alone, 

That cover the thousands of dead. 

It tore from the mother the babe in her arms. 

From the father his wife and his child. 
From the young man his parents, his sweetheart as well, 

Alike they were swept side by side. 
There were heartrending shrieks from the poor dying souls 

As the flood hurled them on to their doom. 
And some breathed their last in a watery grave. 

While others in a fiery tomb. 



There is many and many a hero to-night, 

Laying cold in an unknown grave, 
That gave up his life, and of his treasures lost sight, 

While trying a loved one to save. 
No monument stands to tell the names. 

Nor does history record their brave deeds. 
But a just one above, will not fail to reward. 

Our heroes, for whom the world pleads. 

One brave young man on a thorough-bred steed, 

A second Paul Revere, 
Rode through Johnstown at a break-neck speed, 

Shouting madly that danger was near, 
The dam has burst, fly for your lives. 

But his warning came too late. 
For his body, found lifeless, his horse by his side. 

Remained to tell his sad fate. 

We know of a mother and her children likewise. 

Who tried for hours her husband to save. 
But the strong hand of death held his foot in a vise. 

And he sank to a watery grave. 
But of all the sad scenes that the eye could behold 

Was the angel babe on the raft, 
With eyes raised to God, little hands clasped in prayer, 

While fatherless, motherless left. 



It would soften the hardest heart I know, 

And bring tears to the dry est eyes, 
To hear people tell of the terrors that night, 

Say nothing of the sobs and the sighs. 
May God pity those who are left to bear 

The loss of their family and home, 
The world may be kind, but can never repair 

The poor broken hearts they now own. 

Onl}^ think of the hundreds tenting night after night, 

In that desolate place all alone. 
On a pillow of tears, with scarce any light. 

Where had once been their bright happy home. 
They may rebuild the Cambria works again. 

And business blocks cover the place, 
But the scenes of the flood in our memory will live. 

For that they can never efface. 

We'll now fold up the papers and lay them away. 

As a relic in years yet to come, 
For others to read that long list of names, 

When we, like the victims, have gone, 
Then prepare for the worst, it is always the best. 

You know not the minute or hour, 
That God, he may call upon one, upon all. 

And such a sad end may be ours. 

Margaret Boyle, 
Stenbenville, Ohio. 



Steubenville, O. 
Press of W. W. MacKay, 

i88q. 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




006 022 135 2 ^ 



